# The Tajik civil war

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "The Tajik civil war," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-tajik-civil-war/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's account of the Tajik civil war of the 1990s as the pattern that later conflicts follow — a quarter to a third of the population dead by some accounts, ethnic massacres routine enough that captives were roped together and drowned when the bullets ran out, and a war that lasted exactly as long as its foreign sponsors stayed interested.*

- **When:** The 1990s
- **Toll he gives:** 'By some accounts, a quarter to a third of the population'
- **Method when ammunition ran out:** Captives tied together with ropes and thrown into rivers to drown
- **Foreign sponsors:** The Taliban, the United States, Russia and China
- **How it ended:** The sponsors lost interest and stopped funding it; a power-sharing agreement and a fragile peace followed
- **Since:** 'They''ve really climbed out of the hole' — but it took a long time
- **Why he raises it:** As the precedent for Sudan

**The Tajik civil war** is the conflict [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) reaches for when he wants a precedent for a war that kills enormous numbers of people without being reported, and which he raised in October 2025 as the closest analogue to [Sudan](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-sudan-massacre).

## The scale

*"A lot of people died,"* he says. *"By some accounts, a quarter to a third of the population."* There were *"massacres, ethnic massacres all the time."*[1][2]

The detail he singles out is a logistical one. At one point *"they ran out of bullets"* — and so *"they would tie people together with ropes and throw them into rivers and drown them all together. It was like one of their things."*[2]

## Whose war it was

The similarity to Sudan that Kiriakou identifies is in the financing. These *"were proxy wars that were funded by outsiders. And as long as the money kept coming in, the war went on."* The sponsors in Tajikistan's case were an unlikely set to have in common: *"the Taliban and the US and Russia and China."*[2][3]

## How it stopped

It did not stop because anyone won. The sponsors *"basically all lost interest in Tajikistan"* and *"they stopped funding it"* — after which *"there was a power sharing agreement, and they had a fragile peace."*[3]

Kiriakou's coda is the part that makes the comparison to Sudan bearable rather than only bleak: *"now they've really climbed out of the hole. It took a long time, but they were in a deep hole."*[3]

## See also

- [The Sudan massacre](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-sudan-massacre)
- [The Taliban](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/taliban)
- [Soviet Union](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/soviet-union)
- [Ukraine as a proxy war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ukraine-proxy-war)
- [Afghan Languages](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/afghan-languages)

## Sources

1. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Gaza-istan?” (2025-11-01), at 08:48. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7-d0Y6eESc&t=528s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-01-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-gaz/
2. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Gaza-istan?” (2025-11-01), at 09:19. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7-d0Y6eESc&t=559s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-01-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-gaz/
3. DeProgram with Ted Rall and John Kiriakou: “Gaza-istan?” (2025-11-01), at 09:49. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7-d0Y6eESc&t=589s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-11-01-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-with-ted-rall-and-john-kiriakou-gaz/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-tajik-civil-war/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt